What is says on the label. These are beautifully recorded bells set in open soundscapes. Not only bells, though they are always at the centre. One of the most ubiquitous soundmarks, dominating the European landscape for over 1000 years, bells regulated rural life. Nothing else of human making was so powerful, symbolic and universal. And somehow they still retain something of their extraordinary authority. The have true voices and more resemble the natural sounds of thunder, rain, the sea, animals and birds than today's more dominating traffic, machinery, helicopters, sirens and leaking tinned tones. On this CD we hear church and cathedral bells - from Olso and Turku, a Mayday carillon, street bells from a carnival in rural Italy, and the massed bells worn by participants in the goat dance in Skyros, Greece (where each member of a large procession carries 60 pounds of them). Along with the bells come, variously, birds, some traffic, church choirs, handbells, pedestrians, hot air balloons, the Mayday street parade with bands, protestors and celebrants and strolling musicians. With all the richness and engulfing quality that the best location recording can capture. Pretty glorious. Nice packaging.